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What's a Wreck?

A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

Ok, ok, to be fair, Dora might be pregnant. It's just a lot less traumatizing to imagine her purple monkey friend is stuffed down her pants holding a basketball. And wow are there a lot of things wrong with that statement.

Still, you must admit: her face looks good on paper...stuck on cake.

Ok, maybe you don't have to admit that.

Oh, and Dora, sweetie, didn't anyone ever tell you to match your foundation to your double chins? Take it from a girl who knows: it's all about the blending. And scarves. Scarves are awesome.

Now I know you can't put a price on perfection, but fortunately this labor of...labor...only cost wreckporter Becky S. a measly two hundred and seventy five dollars. However, she also reports, "when I complained to the bakery, I was told they wished they had charged us more because they had so much work in it." So I guess the price just went up if you want a similar piece of...work. Sorry, guys. Maybe they'll give you a discount if you bring your own basketball.

Well, I can see why it was a such a lot of work for the bakery, with the raised arms and standing on legs and all . . . which really causes me to wonder how that form is managing to balance on those legs *thinking back to the Howl's Moving Castle cake on Sunday Sweets* . . . maybe Dora is a wizard too?

Also, I agree, there were a lot of things wrong with that statement . . . so now that I've had my daily dose of trauma, I'm gonna just find a nice corner to sit in and shudder for while . . . *walks off muttering something about purple monkeys and basketballs*

Leaving aside the whole pillow-smuggler vs pregnant Dora issue --EWWW-- what is with the poor child's flat hands. I thought at first she had two right hands. And then the ropes around the wrists. Is Dora into bondage? Has she just escaped from kidnappers? And would you eat that shiny black hair?

That's not Dora! That's an anaconda disguised as Dora and he's just swallowed Boots! That bulge in the center totally gave it away.

It really does amaze me what bakers think they should be able to charge people THAT much money for! I understand that "life-sized" cakes are difficult and incredibly time consuming but slapping a paper face on that swollen monstrosity and having the audacity to charge $275 for it is just WRONG. Bad wreckers, no soup for you!

Little Dora is simply suffering from the normal side-effect of so much globe-trotting: Gastric upset. Poor thing hasn't had a -ahem- "moving experience" since her show went into syndication. It's only natural she'd be a little off-color and bloated.

There, now: An explanation with even more "wrong" than the one you proffered, Jen. You're welcome.

Let this be a warning to parents: when you allow your child to wander about in the wilderness unsupervised, wearing clothing that is obviously too small (c'mon, do we really have to see your child's midriff?), with only a backpack full of materials completely irrelevant to survival, this is what you get.

Obviously, Dora did not pack snacks and upon getting lost in the jungle, is either swelling from extreme hunger, or as indicated above, ate Boots and the random basketball that was in her Backpack. Apparently Map did not make the trip, else she would not have been lost in the first place.

(Yes, I have a two year old. He LOVES Dora; as such, I am tortured with this show much too frequently. However, anything that will get him to sit relatively still for 25 minutes so I can get a shower is usually welcome in my house. I think even he would be horrified by imposter Dora above).

I was once asked to make a cake featuring Boots the Monkey. The woman who ordered it said that she had contacted every bakery in the area and they were all willing to make Dora but not Boots. The cake turned out looking just like him: http://amazingcakesbyvanessa.blogspot.com/2010/08/boots-monkey-and-football-birthday.html

Now I know why this Dora cake is so "rounded" -- she ate my Boots cake!

I'm trying to figure out why they went to the extra trouble of putting baby-blue duct tape on her shoulders (It's not Backpack, Backpack is lavender, says the mother who made goodie bags with Backpack's face almost 9 years ago.) and the extra bracelet! That's got to be worth at least $50 bucks. Oh, wait, NO IT ISN'T, the whole thing kinda sucks!

Oh, I believe that a lot of work went into it. It's not beginner-level stuff to make a stand that supports an upright figure, or to get the cake on it, or to get fondant to stick to it. It's tricky stuff.

Which is why beginners shouldn't pretend they know how to do it, churn out a failed attempt, and still charge the customer.

Then again, $275? That's not exactly a fair price to expect for a 3D figure cake with a custom stand. Markets vary, sure, but if you want artistic-level quality, be willing to pay artistic-level prices. For pity's sake it costs more than $275 to take a class in how to make one of these things.

They didn't get what they paid for, but they didn't pay for what they wanted.

They actually charged for this? Someone actually agreed to attempt to make it? People need to understand the limits of cake and icing. Somethings just aren't physically possible and shouldn't be attempted-or if attempted shouldn't be charged for.

So....let me try hard to understand this....you go into a bakers and you pay before you actually see the cake.So (again as I obviously am missing something here) why would you do that?Why would you pay that amount of money without seeing how the cake will come out because I would be walking out of the shop without the cake and picking up a cake at the counter in a supermarket (less traumatising and kids this age, they don't really care so long as there is cake) a deposit I can understand, and I would lose the deposit before I paid for something like this.I also agree with there being something deeply worrying about children eating lumps of Dora. (and it's el canibal, btw)

Care to start hacking that one to pieces with a 2 year old and a 3 year old watching???

There are many things, but I've been trying to figure out the one thing that is most "off" about this cake. I finally decided the head is too small for a child's head. However, if they made it exactly like the character, there is no way they would have ever been able to make it stand up.

What is so unacceptable about a sheet cake with a printout on it anyway?

I wonder who the father of Dora's future kid is. Are they married? Will Boots be the god parent of the child? How much will she be willing to cut back on her exploring? I see a new possible spin-off already, "Dora the Stay At Home Mom". But to be serious, what was the baker thinking with the paper face after all that $275 worth of "hard work".

Wow. Horrifying. I'm a really, really bad home decorator, but I made my son a Dora cake for his birthday just last week and except for a few imperfections, it actually came out pretty well (if the link works, it's here:https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3449577916577&set=a.3449556756048.2162537.1184606654&type=3&theater ). In fact, the NickJR website has a whole page and video including instructions on how to make a pretty cute Dora cake. It's just the face, but waaaay better than that wreck!

I think the baker was making a statement about childhood obesity. "the kids that lay around watching this show end up looking like this!" That is quite the belly flap stuffed into those shorts and the bracelets are so tight the hands have no circulation, hence the flat hand. "Eat this and you will look like this!" The baker must be proponent of truth in advertising. Either way it is an eeeeew cake for me!

Dora is one of those characters I try to avoid encountering (along with Hello Kitty and -- UGH -- Barney), so I don't really know, but might there be other proportioning problems here?

There was certainly a proportioning problem in the price department. Do I understand correctly that the wreckorator refused to refund because of thinking they didn't charge enough?! In other words, if the job is enough of a production, the customer has no recourse. Talk about too big to fail -- I guess the lesson is that if you want to refund-proof your work, supersize it.